Sam Cornwall uses his Tumblr to upload videos of his kids. They’re cute and a bit boring, full of the sort of a inane things kids say. In the past three weeks all of his posts were pulled from the platform, and Cornwall received an automated message which stated Tumblr considered them “sexually explicit.” “What my wife and I find most upsetting is that a Tumblr bot or a troll is marking videos of our children as sexually explicit,” Cornwall told Gizmodo over email. “It has made us rethink the whole Internet sharing thing.”

Advertisement

Advertisement

He’s far from alone. While some takedowns appear to be aimed at actual pornography there seems to be a huge uptick in false takedowns lately. Users have taken to Twitter to protest the removal of innocuous content from their blogs.

Gary Cassidy had two videos of his cat pulled early on Wednesday for reasons unknown. “They went up at the same time and down so I think poor moderation [is to blame] maybe,” he told Gizmodo over DM. Tumblr user Birbgrl had a similar use with a video of a Hermitude/Flume show she recorded. “I uploaded the video on September 13th two times and both times it was removed for having “sexually explicit content” the same day,” she told Gizmodo over DM. The video is what you’d expect from a concert—mostly other people in the crowd, the musicians barely visible.

Advertisement

Advertisement

“I didn’t appeal the post because I figured that nothing would really happen,” Birbgrl wrote. It’s not clear whether the takedowns are the result of an automated process gone wrong, or trolls exploiting a broken system. It’s not the first time users have had content deleted at the behest of automation, as many learned in early 2015. Cassidy and Cornwall, however, have had luck with the appeals process, getting their videos reinstated eventually.

The irony of course is that porn blogs thrive on Tumblr. Aggregated tumblogs for NSFW content are a mainstay of the platform, as are individual bloggers using their accounts as a form of advertisement to make money in adult entertainment. The mechanics are less important than the simple fact that if you’re looking for porn on Tumblr, it’s easily found, but seemingly isn’t being policed.